Students at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication won more journalism awards at the Broadcast Education Association’s annual Festival of Media Arts competition than any other school in the country.

Cronkite students took home a total of 18 awards, the combined total of the second- and third-place schools in news, sports, documentary and interactive multimedia divisions. This marks the seventh time in eight years that the Cronkite School has finished with the most awards in these divisions. In the past eight years, Cronkite students have won 136 awards.

In this year’s competition, Cronkite junior Olivia Richard took home one of the highest honors, the Best of Festival for Radio Feature Reporting for a story about veterans that aired on Phoenix NPR affiliate KJZZ. Students also won five first-place awards, two second place, six third place and four Awards of Excellence honors from a pool of more than 1,450 entries, representing 175-plus colleges and universities.

“It was an exciting feeling to know that my work had value, and my story meant something because it was about veterans, who give so much to our country,” said Richard, who also took first place in radio sports.

Cronkite News, the school’s nightly newscast on Arizona PBS, took first place in Television Newscast. Cronkite News students also scored first-place honors in Television Feature and Television Weathercaster categories.

In sports, Cronkite students won awards in the play-by-play, television feature and radio feature categories. Students also placed third in the Studio (multi-camera/live-to-tape) category for the Cronkite News Election Special.

“We are extremely proud of the tremendous work of our students,” said Cronkite Assistant Dean Mark Lodato. “Our students produced high-quality broadcast journalism that has made an impact on the community.”

Cronkite Southwest Borderlands Initiative Professor Angela Kocherga, who co-leads Cronkite News – Borderlands, won a Best of Festival award in the faculty news competition for her PBS NewsHour story on people’s thoughts on building a wall running along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Established in 1955, the BEA is a global professional association for professors, industry professionals and graduate students who are interested in teaching and research related to electronic media and multimedia enterprises.

The Festival of Media Arts winners will be honored during a special ceremony at the BEA’s annual convention in Las Vegas in April.